President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US military personnel from Syria’s border with Turkey effectively opens a new chapter in the conflict, leaving Turkey on its own in the so-called “peace corridor” plan in northern Syria. The fragmented structure of US foreign policy-making at large, the flip-flopping policies and the failure to appreciate Turkey’s strategic priorities resulted in Trump’s abrupt go-ahead to…
The US president Donald Trump is not known to practise judo. A few judo techniques he may have got to know from his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, who is a Black Belt. But what Trump has just done to Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan is straight out of a Physics concept in judo. Taking advantage of…
The backstage struggle between the Bush interventionists and the America-firsters who first backed Donald Trump for president just exploded into open warfare, which could sunder the Republican Party. At issue is Trump’s decision to let the Turkish army enter Northern Syria, to create a corridor between Syrian Kurds and the Turkish Kurds of the PKK,…
On October 7, U.S. President Donald Trump has a little surprise for the Kurds in Syria: Today, President Donald J. Trump spoke with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey by telephone. Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria. The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved…
Syria, uncomfortably and vulnerably, finds itself sandwiched between the Ottoman hammer to the North and the Israeli anvil to the South. Both power houses are, hostile, expansionist and occupy Syrian territory. When one thinks of a ‘safe zone’ along the Syrian-Turkish border on the Syrian side, one is reminded of the American-Mexican border. Both borders…
Turkish President Erdogan’s recently announced proposal to build a “refugee city” in Northern Syria amounts to demographic engineering intended to stop the creation of a “Kurdish Corridor” there and also prevent the region from fully reintegrating into Damascus’ fold after the war. *** Turkish President Erdogan proposed the building of a “refugee city” in Northern…
